Model Electronics 101

This project is my first attempt at using electronics to light a model. I may be attempting to do something that is a bit too advanced for me - but what the heck!

My ideas for lighting the EEV are this:

• Four flashing red lights on the corners of the top hull.
• A light of some description in the flight recorder base.

To achieve this I experimented with lots of different electronic components but I have finally settled on the following:

• 1 5mm 50mcd flashing red LED.
• 1 3mm 1500mcd 'super bright' red LED.
• 1 100ohm resistor.
• 1 push button switch.
• some 0.3mm fibre optic cable salvaged from a 70's style lamp.

 

I discovered that the standard brightness flashing LED was not bright enough to sufficiently light the fibre optics. I need to light the fibre optics with a super bright LED, but this does not flash. How do I make the super bright LED flash?

The answer was surprisingly simple, I wired the super bright LED in SERIES with the flashing LED and they BOTH flash!

The next thing to do was to add a resistor so that the LEDs do not burn out. I was referred to the LED CENTER site that has a calculator program that was very helpful, the resistor value was 100ohm.

The basic electronic components have has some hook up wire soldered to them and some heat shrink tubing placed over the joints. Now it is on to fitting this out into the model.

More soon,